Tulips blooming at Washington Square park yesterday for the #May1Strike rally then march to Foley Square.

Hundreds turned out yesterday on a warm spring day at Washington Square park for 2017 May Day event. The history of May Day,

Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don’t realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.

In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Jack London’s The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class. Read more here,,

Activists tabling, handing out fliers, selling books on behalf of immigrant rights. Sign reading DEPORT TRUMP NOT IMMIGRANTSAt 1:30 students from NYU were set to do a walk out in protest of NYU not signing on to become a Sanctuary City for refugees and people escaping war in their countries. NYU Sanctuary is walking out Monday May 1 at 1:30pm to protest the fact that NYU has made no substantive policy changes for people affected by the Trump government’s white nationalist agenda. This walkout is part of a national movement. Scholars affiliated with the International Women’s Strike have issued a national call to shut down universities across the country. Immigrant rights organization, Cosecha, has called for a mass strike–A Day Without Immigrants—and many labor unions are also organizing a day of action. May 1st is called May Day and International Workers’ Day. It is an official holiday in over sixty countries and has historically been a day of resistance and protest. We are fed up with being ignored at NYU, which continues to support Trump’s corporate agenda. We’re fed up with our government courting war, destroying lives and families, and ruining the environment. They are relying on our complacency to succeed. We cannot be neutral on a moving train. What kind of world are we trying to create? May Day is an important day to stand up, walkout, fight back. —A table set from Revolution Books and the work of Bob Avakian. Because of Bob Avakian and the work he has done over several decades, summing up the positive and negative experience of the communist revolution so far, and drawing from a broad range of human experience, there is a new synthesis of communism that has been brought forward — there really is a viable vision and strategy for a radically new, and much better, society and world, and there is the crucial leadership that is needed to carry forward the struggle toward that goal. http://www.revolutionbooksnyc.org/Demonstrator holding up Socialist Worker newspaper headlined, NO HUMAN BEING IS ILEGAL.This demonstrator expressing some facts on Obama’s deportation record. Obama was called the Deporter in Chief.Travis Morales of #RefuseFascism.org told me that his group was there to “stand against the Trump regime and it’s attacks on immigrants. We’re here to say ‘No to the wall, no to the Muslim ban, No to the deportations, No to the fascist USA. We must drive out the Trump/Pence regime, this ugly disgusting ‘Make America great again is really make America white again’. Demonizing and criminalizing immigrants and Muslims is exactly like the Nazi’s did to the Jews and other people in Germany. We can not allow this to happen. The people who are not the targets of these attacks you need to stand in the streets, we need to be calling millions into the streets and get prepared very soon to flood the streets with out millions day after day, night after night”. For more video footage of the rally and march see my youtube channel. The footage will be posted soon. April Watters YoutubeThe crowd of a few hundred, with other actions going on around the city at Union Square park, listened to various speakers and performers who focused on workers and immigrants. They carried signs that read, “No person is illegal” and “We won’t tolerate Trump’s fascist policies.”Workers, mainly immigrants, holding banners standing for their rights and dignity in the workplace.Addressing the Climate Denial of the current administration and his cuts to EPA funding as well as endless wars and talk of building walls.Worker from B&H photo who have been fighting for fare treatment and losing jobs as the company tries to move 2 Brooklyn factories and 335 jobs to New Jersey.Posted to the statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi at Washington Square park.Ready to leave Washington Square park for Foley Square with hundred of demonstrators.Another banner and group lining up to leave WSP for Foley Square where a larger May Day event took place.https://www.ice.gov/about ICE- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforces federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety. ICE was created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the former U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. ICE now has more than 20,000 employees in more than 400 offices in the United States and 46 foreign countries. The agency has an annual budget of approximately $6 billion, primarily devoted to two operational directorates — Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). These two operational directorates are supported by Management and Administration (M&A) and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) to advance the ICE mission.

Led by indigenous demonstrators, the marcher make their way through a zigzagged route to Foley Square as they attempt to navigate away from police yet try to work with police at the same time.Several stops were made trying to navigate the streets for the best effect while NYPD blared the loud speaker demanding demonstrators stay on the side walk or risk arrest. Near Carmine and Leroy StreetsPolice making sure demonstrators stay on the sidewalk as they hold up the long Black Lives Matter banner.Arriving at Foley Square where another major rally called “Rise Up: Immigrant Rights and Workers’ Rights” will held at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan at 5 p.m. Speakers included union leaders, activists, and elected officials, including Public Advocate Leticia James, Comptroller Scott Stringer and Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito.

The fight to raise the minimum wage to a living wage while companies profits soar.Hundred attended the rally at Foley Square yesterday for May Day 2017 but this time with the focus on the new Trump Administration and it’s effects on immigrants, jobs, the environment and war.Comptroller Scott Stringer speaking for the rights of all people at yesterday’s May Day rally at Foley Square.

More info on ICE, A couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, I represented an undocumented worker in deportation proceedings. Or rather, I tried to. My attempts to navigate this system were not what I would call successful. Part of this may be due to the fact that, though I have been a practicing attorney for 10 years, this was my first go at immigration law. But another part of it—most of it, I’d venture—is due to the fact that the U.S. immigration system is designed to be opaque, confusing, and inequitable. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/04/ice_detainees_enter_an_unbelievably_cruel_system_designed_to_make_them_disappear.html
WHEN OUR WORKPLACES ARE NOT SAFE..
OUR HOMES ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR SCHOOLS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR STREETS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR HOSPITALS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR SUBWAYS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR COURTS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR WATER IS NOT SAFE.
OUR LAND IS NOT SAFE.
WE STRIKE.